


Peaches

by Ladycat



Series: Happy Endings [9]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Correct me if I’m wrong, Peaches, but one is usually less clothed to reach that nice, surfer-boy hue.  Although I’d look smashing two shades under crispy, I’m sure.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peaches

He always seems to find himself here, where the room is drenched in gold like hair he used to lust after, like a glimmering, gleaming diamond that could do nothing but dazzle him. It’s empty, now. A hollowed out husk of charred furniture and broken reality. But Spike’s never minded a little dirt or decay, and anyway, he’s got a blanket to stretch out on.

“You look like you’re sunbathing.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Peaches, but one is usually less clothed to reach that nice, surfer-boy hue. Although I’d look smashing two shades under crispy, I’m sure.”

“Huh.”

 _Huh_ isn’t really an expected answer, but Spike is too drunk with warmth to really care. He listens, lazy, as a large object picks its way through the rubble: he doesn’t see the path Spike’s carved for himself.

He never does.

Angel’s still too bulky, too sure of his mass and weight, to ever really be delicate. He’s never wanted to fly. So when he sits, the half-broken desk creeks out a warning which both of them ignore, although Spike only because the result promises to be hilarious. “You said ‘one’,” Angel tells him.

“I can say two and three, too. Can go all the way up to a googleplex, if I wanted.”

Angel, of course, doesn’t get the joke. “When referring to yourself. The reflexive. You never do that except when you’re being… ”

“What? What’m I being, exactly?”

“William.”

“Now that’s a meaningless answer if I ever did hear one.” An uncomfortable one, too, and suddenly Spike’s aware that he’s got debris crunched underneath him. Damn Angel anyway. “So I know how to speak properly. Sometimes it slips through, habit and all that.”

“You sound like Giles when you get resigned and world-weary.”

Angel completely deserves the boot hurled at his head. Completely. “Wanker,” Spike tosses after. “What do you want, Angel? You never come here.” Here, to where he’d once ruled his own personal fiefdom, been his father’s son in ways his father could never contemplate, but would have _instantly_ understood.

Spike’s certain that Angel will be horrified beyond everything, ever, when Spike finally tells him about that. He’s saving it for a special occasion.

“Why do you?”

“Why do I get more pull than you do? Well, Angel, see, there’s this thing called being _charming_ , although a devilishly tight body and a wicked tongue do wonders, and if that doesn’t work—”

“He likes you.”

Dammit, Spike knows better than to give Angel openings like that. Shifting onto his side is too much like rolling around in bed, trying to avoid a lover, but it’s all Spike can do right then. The warmth of LA’s summer sun, thicker without air conditioning to dispel its enchantments, leaves Spike sodden with the inability to move or really care all that very much. If Angel had picked a topic only slightly less sensitive, then Spike could be back lazing and doing his mock ‘tanning’, which he’s thought about, of course he has, and not wondering what he really sees when he looks at eyes that are grey like the ocean, a shifting, changing miasma of moods and thoughts that he can only sometimes parse out.

“He doesn’t understand what it is to like someone,” Spike says. He hates playing the prophet (which is only a lie depending on circumstance) but he’s always been damned good at it. “He’s a child.”

“You love children.”

“And you’ve been dismayed and disappointed about that since Dru first bit me. Stop pretending it’s _different_ now that it’s him.”

“It is, though. Before, I only cared about _you.”_

Liar, Spike wants to shout. Liar, liar fucking _pants_ on fire. Angelus never cared about anything but his own poufy self. Except. Except that, for a while, Spike was a part of that self Angelus cared after so much. He was one of those weird, weak parts, like an ankle that always cracked or an arm that always bent funny, but he’d been part of a whole. Part of a…

“He called Dawn. She’s doing fine, but you know that, because you still talk to _her_. He knew that, too, so he called her and asked her if you’d shown up on her doorstep, the way I know you were thinking about, because one thing you’ve always been really good at is finding warm, willing girls to take you in when you’re feeling miserable for yourself.”

This time, Spike throws the biggest, sharpest piece of rubble he can find. It leaves a dusty mark on Angel’s shoulder, and he winces pretty theatrically but Spike doesn’t feel better. “You shut your fucking mouth about that.”

“Feeling miserable for yourself?”

This time, Spike scores a line of pink that darkens rapidly along Angel’s chin. Angel doesn’t wince this time, doesn’t even change that wooden mask of superiority he’s wearing, but Spike still feels savagely satisfied. “There are lines, Angelus. I don’t cross yours.”

Angel opens his mouth and Spike can _see_ as he stops himself from saying ‘anymore’, because ‘anymore’ hasn’t been valid since that first damned month Spike came back. No one wants to believe that Spike has a little bit of decency in him, least of all Spike himself, but there are certain things he _knows_ not to talk about, and for Angel to barge in here, disturbing his nap-slash-sulk, and to bring up fucking _Dawn_ , not Buffy like Spike expected, but _Dawn_ —

His humiliation is complete when Spike’s eyes prick out a hot warning. Great. Just fucking great. The last thing he wants to do in his unlife is to give Angel more ammunition.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah,” he says, softly. “I am. I’m sorry, Spike. It’s just—it’s easy to be mean with you.”

“And you’ll trash a little girl to do that?”

“You mean you didn’t hear?” Angel’s grin is startling in the sunlight, teeth gleaming with amusement. “Nevermind. I’ll let her explain.”

The sun is starting to set, now, deepening the shadow’s Spike’s lived his life flirting with and something hidden instead of him aches to see it disappear. He’s so warm, right now. Comfortable, even with Angel perched like an ugly gargoyle next to him, telling him things he really, really doesn’t want to hear.

He gets why so many people move to California. The sun rings everything right out of your head until there’s nothing but squinting, brilliant light.

“Is it so bad, being with him?”

Spike sighs explosively, rolling onto his haunches so he can glare properly. “You are just a bundle of contradictions, aren’t you? First it’s all about how you hate me, you want me out of your life. And when I try to oblige, half-assed as usual, suddenly you don’t just hate me, you want me _dusty_ and spread all over your mantelpiece in the most creative way you can possibly come up with. That was two fucking weeks ago, Angelus, in case you’ve forgotten. And now you’re what, here to tell me I’ve made a mistake, that it’s worth it, that you know _anything_ about fucking _either_ of us, let alone what it is we have together? Fuck you, Angelus. Fuck you and that big white horse you rode in on. One second thought, maybe the _horse_ can fuck you. I’ll happily sell it for some quid!”

He’s panting, he knows, anger coursing through him like blood does when it’s fresh and hot, sparking like fire against his nerves until he’s about to burst with it, ballooning up with frustration and unhappiness, and it’s always god damned Angel, always Angelus, who comes in and takes whatever muck of a situation Spike’s made and makes it ten _thousand_ times worse, because that’s what they do to each other. Every time, every way, they feed and the frustrate and it’s just—

Spike makes a pained sound. Angel hums something soothing in reply and doesn’t lift his hand from the back of Spike’s head, thumb rubbing careful circles as he lets Spike beat a little at his chest.

It’s _infuriating_. Patronizing.

It’s fucking effective, too.

“I thought you were using him,” Angel says, the words more rumbling vibration than anything definably understandable. Spike hears him, anyway. “I thought it was just a game to you. I wanted it to be a game, because it never really is, is it? Not with you.”

Spike can feel himself melting more firmly into Angel’s arms, his barrel-deep chest, and later, he’ll be properly humiliated by it. For right now he closes his eyes and breathes. “No. Not with me.”

“I’m jealous of that.”

“I know.”

Connor finds them still leaning on each other when the sun is nothing but a memory, the room starting to go dank as water and smog fill up where the sun had burned it off. He carefully pushes his father away, tilting Spike towards him so that he can hold Spike like an overtired child, rocking him slightly and leaning his cheek on bleached hair.

He’s so thin, Spike notes, again. Nothing but bones and hidden musculature, enhanced with properties a bodybuilder would pay any amount of money or blowjobs for. Like Dru. Like Buffy, too, when she starved herself down to the ultimate weapon, the ultimate denial of everything she could have been. Should be.

Nothing like Darla, who’d always been lush in her curves. Nothing like Angelus, who’d always wanted that imposing physique, artfully playing up the depth of his chest when fashion allowed for it. It was Angel who tried to hide, and he did it just badly enough that no one was really fooled. He was a big man, always would be.

Connor… Connor was just a man.

Hair makes a curtain before his eyes. Spike bats at the fringes, letting the strands fall in and out of clumps. It feels nice against his fingers. “I was never mad,” he says, aware that Connor’s father—his father—is sitting next to them and listening to every word. “I wasn’t—it wasn’t like that.”

“You have moods,” Connor agrees, like that’s exactly what Spike’s talking about.

Actually. Maybe it is. He twists enough that he can see Connor’s face, studying a mouth that’s been bitten into an unusual fullness, broken capillaries dark on torn skin. Snub nose, too small against a face so pale pink burns on his cheekbones. It’s not a flush, just looks like one. Spike kisses the warmth there.

“This is very unusual, you have to understand.”

Connor laughs and kisses him, a breath of touch and taste, before turning to look at his father. “I know,” he says, and his arms tighten. He’s so strong, power hidden beneath a crinkled, unassuming wrapper. “I wasn’t the one who didn’t know.”

Spike can feel Angel’s sheepish flush. It feels like sunshine.

“Did you really call Dawn?”

“I really did, and you missed out on something… huge.”

“Oh, bloody hell.” Pushing to his feet, Spike draws Connor up with him and starts moving out to where the main lobby of Wolfram and Hart used to be. “What the hell did she do, this time? I swear, she can give Harris a run for his money when it comes to stupid, blundering, demon-attracting ways.”

Connor laughs, stopping with a hitch that makes Spike think of hips and all the things he can do with them, but the look on his face captures Spike’s gaze and holds it. “You’re coming home, right?”

Fortunately, Spike finds kissing is a lot easier than saying soppy things like _where else would I go_. It has the added bonus of making Angel cringe, whereas the words would prompt that horribly terrifying face that he thinks means _aww_.

And he wonders why Spike would rather have him mad then indulgent.

“So, what did she do?”

“Let’s just say, you aren’t going to be able to call her ‘little bit’ anymore.”

“Will you stop dancing and just tell me?”

“I’m not dancing, I’m walking. I’m also tormenting you. I find I’m due.”

They’re halfway down the stairs, Angel listening avidly about a flight behind them. Spike wonders if he can bully the credit card out for a nice, family dinner in Connor’s favorite restaurant that also happens to serve some very special ‘wine’ for the right guests. “Point,” he says, absently.

Connor’s arm tightens, and for a minute so does his face: he hasn’t forgotten. Good. Spike doesn’t want him to. But when he opens his mouth, it’s to grin and say, “You mentioned something about demon attraction, before…”


End file.
